Freckle
by clandestine7
Summary: [HaruRin] They are always discovering more of each other. Or: on second thought, Haruka isn't sure if there's anything romantic about them at all.


**A/N:** Well, the plan had been to start editing chapter 9 of Long Distance on Friday, but I woke up that morning and had An Idea, so I ignored my gnawing hunger for an hour and a half and wrote the framework of this instead of having breakfast. And then I ate breakfast and asked myself whether I had really rolled out of bed and written a smut piece first thing. But there it was on my computer, so... /sweats/. (Please don't expect anything pornographic though, I'm not one for that level of explicitness...)

What's the context of this piece? Hah, idek, something that involves a Team Japan?

* * *

><p>It's after a day of competition, after two medals (one for each of them), after press interviews and before they all go to dinner, that Rin says to him, hand on his wrist and mouth to his ear, voice a little lower than usual, "Come over later." Maybe Haruka already knows what he means or maybe they're both still feigning ignorance; Rin is already heading down the hall for the lobby, shoulders straining against a white button-down.<p>

The team is raucous at dinner, tucked away in the restaurant's back room where the lights shine a bit too dim inside rectangular shades hanging from the ceiling. Haruka feels like he's constantly squinting – the table is dark wood, the chairs are darker, the walls and floors are a smoky crimson color. The silverware glints in a secretive way, no chopsticks in this place.

There is food and drink, and every now and then Rin's eyes find his from down the table. A moment of deep, pondering red and a faint smile that might mean _Oh, nothing_ or might be a question: _What's caught your eye?_ Haruka just keeps looking until Rin looks away; he's hungry, but not for food, not for the light scattering off the silverware, too much like flash photography.

Rin's room is five doors down and on the opposite side of the hall as his own. Haruka heads there after dinner, and while his feet pad along the carpet he wonders, _Why tonight?_

Though then again, why not tonight? It was going to happen eventually. They've always found ways to dig themselves deeper into each other; their relationship evolves with intensity at its core.

Is he thinking of it so clinically because he's nervous? Or is it just because he feels like he's arriving for a scheduled appointment?

He knocks on Rin's door, hears the echoes race up and down the hall, wonders with a moment's shortness of breath how loud they will want to be.

"Hey," Rin says with a smile when he answers. He's in sweats and a black tank, it's been a few hours. Haruka's still in the pants he wore to dinner, but his t-shirt is plain and roomy, something he'd sleep in. He slips inside, and the first thing he sees is Rin's medal on the bed. It catches light too, but not as violently as the silver had – it doesn't make his temples ache.

"I was admiring it," Rin says, shutting the door.

Haruka looks over his shoulder, raises his eyebrows. "That's really narcissistic."

Rin shrugs, grinning. "Eh, what can I say." He moves around Haruka, picks up the medal and drops it into the bag at the foot of the bed. Then he steps up close, takes Haruka's hands and rests their foreheads together. His voice is instantly softer, the tone that makes Haruka's insides feel like they've just liquefied, turned to something weightless, like clouds or the cotton candy Rin would buy at the summer festivals, way back when before any of this. "Good job today."

"Thanks," Haruka says. He closes his eyes, feels everything unwind. These moments are always a relief, not from anything really but just in themselves. Quiet at the end of a busy day. "You too."

Rin hums. Tilts his head and kisses Haruka lightly on the lips. "How many is that for you now?"

"How many what?"

"Medals," Rin says, the _Duh _very much implied.

"I don't care," Haruka says, and he takes his hands from Rin's, wraps his arms around Rin's neck. He feels Rin's smile pressed against his mouth, before Rin's lips part. Fingers steal beneath his shirt, push it up; he lifts his arms so Rin can pull it over his head, sighs when Rin's mouth finds his neck.

It's become something of a routine. Take off clothes, swim, put clothes back on. Take off clothes, make out, take off more clothes, get reacquainted with each others' bodies.

But routines get boring and Haruka feels currents run under his skin when Rin's hands are on him – every slide and press and fondle somehow holding the assurance that this _means_ things to Rin, that this isn't just exciting, that this is _theirs_.

It's the teeth on his neck, scrapes that raise goose bumps but don't leave angry lines that sting afterwards. It's the way Rin's palms always feel right everywhere, running over the slopes of his bones and muscles like they're rediscovering places they've been apart from for too long. It's feeling Rin rock into his hands and breathe _Haru, Haru, Haru_ into his shoulder, a tempo akin to the strokes of the butterfly.

They've had sex but they haven't had _sex_ – to Haruka there's a difference because there's no other way to put their intimacy, but there's still that line they haven't crossed. For whatever reason. For no reason. Soon, though.

Maybe he isn't looking at it clinically; maybe he's just calm. It's nice to know what's coming.

They only manage to get their shirts off before they tumble onto the bed. Rin's hips between Haruka's thighs, one shameless rut, then two, so much fabric, so unsatisfying. Rin's mouth working down, and down, and down, tongue dipping quickly in Haruka's bellybutton. Haruka's mind is going to spin out of his head. He has his hands in Rin's hair, wants to push Rin's face lower. Wants to curse, when Rin sits back and he has nothing to hold on to.

"Can I?" Rin asks. His fingers are at the button of Haruka's pants. He looks nervous – wide-eyed and a little bit guilty, like he's asking for something he doesn't know if he's allowed. Like the implications this time make him forget he's been in Haruka's pants countless times before.

Haruka nods, watches Rin's hands shake as he pops the button loose and pulls down the zipper. Haruka props himself on his elbows, lifts his hips so Rin can work the pants over them. The suggestiveness of the motion is lost on neither of them – Rin's cheeks and ears flare, and Haruka feels a slow twist in his stomach. Excitement, fear. There is something exhilarating about having Rin between his legs.

Rin takes Haruka's pants off carefully, like he's afraid to go too fast and break something. Haruka straightens his legs one at a time to help Rin with the process, is acutely aware of the catch of fabric behind a knee, then on a foot, Rin's wrists bumping against his heels.

And then the pants are on the floor, a _fwump_ of fabric, and fingertips alight just above Haruka's waistband. His stomach contracts; he feels the contact in his groin.

"Can I?" Rin says, a waver to his voice. His eyes aren't on Haruka's, and he seems to realize this after a moment, glances up. He still looks a little bit lost, like he's stumbling along trying to keep his balance.

"Yeah," Haruka says. He wonders, faintly, when he became so hoarse. And then he wonders nothing, just melts into the hand that slips into his underwear, then melts into the mouth that finds his.

The preparations are somewhere between uncomfortable and embarrassing, but Rin just presses kisses all up and down his front and whispers things like _Are you okay?_ and _Tell me when to stop _and _Sorry_ and Haruka shakes his head, arms flung over his burning face, and whispers back _I'm fine, Don't want you to stop, Stop saying sorry_.

The first whimper comes as a surprise – his head pitches back and his toes curl and he lets out a breath that is half gasp and half expletive. The tingles race all the way to his toes, and he needs Rin to do that again, not just wait there frozen with his fingers knuckle-deep like he is now – too careful, always too careful when Haruka needs him to be brash and too brash when Haruka needs him to be careful. He rolls his hips, hears Rin give a startled, "Oh, sorry," like he'd been dazed.

Minutes, or seconds, or hours later, when Rin pulls away fully, Haruka wants to curse again but can't figure out how through the rushing in his ears. He feels the mattress dip, then hears Rin's feet on the floor. He forces his eyes open, watches Rin kick off his sweats like he's performing some obscure dance – he's wearing nothing underneath, has a little square packet in his teeth, and Haruka feels the urge to let out the most exasperated snort. He's never imaged what their first time would be like, but he probably should have imagined this.

It's easier than he expected – to get over the discomfort, for the needy coil in the pit of his stomach to grow tighter, for Rin to start moving quick and steady. _Turn over_, Rin had told him, because it's supposed to be easier this way, though Haruka thinks maybe he's just been wanting this for too long, maybe that's why it feels so good so fast. He can hardly imagine what it's like to not feel Rin holding his hips, to not feel Rin moving inside of him, that pressure that is unlike anything else, filling and frightening and making him feel like he's falling, falling, falling.

How did they get all the way here, he wonders during one frantic moment when his hands clench in the sheets and he has to grit his teeth to keep a sound inside – from two boys always at odds to teenagers finding their old friendship again through swimming, to Rin fucking him on a hotel bed in some part of the world where they've never spoken the language.

"I love you," Rin says into his back, breath spilling between his shoulder blades, so hot it's almost molten. Haruka feels a throb – all over his skin, in his heart, in the pulse at the base of his jaw. Rin isn't fucking him, of course; Rin would never fuck him.

His legs don't last long, thighs quivering and trying to spread wider and soon giving in completely, and then he's biting the pillow to silence the need to moan. He's never felt so unhinged from himself, doesn't know whether the premonition of voice in his throat is something he has reign over, doesn't know when it will spill out of his mouth like something else that's given itself up entirely to Rin. His body already feels like it's about to disintegrate. There's no binding thread, just Rin and the deep, desperate tingling in his every cell, the fogginess in his head.

Release has always felt like a wave crashing, taking him completely under and snatching his breath and leaving him limp. The blood begins to slow behind his ears, like a receding tide, and he's aware in a vague out-of-body way of Rin finishing. He can't tell if he's starting to feel sore, doesn't think enough receptors are working to be able to figure it out. But it would make sense – his body getting tired, unable to process any more pleasure, having to resort to normalcy, and with Rin moving so urgently inside of him maybe it makes sense that it can't feel good forever.

Rin is out before it starts to hurt, though, and a few moments later Haruka hears something land in the trash bin beside the bed (later he'll figure out what it is, and frown and tell Rin to at least dispose of it in the bathroom), and then Rin settles with a great, endless sigh next to him, nose against his shoulder.

The heat of Rin's skin slinks through him and he wants to sleep for years. Might manage to, because Rin eventually lays an arm on his back and starts playing with his hair, fingers combing and pulling languidly, every now and then fingernails scraping against his scalp, the back of his neck.

"You good?" Rin says, voice croaky, drowsy.

Haruka makes a sound in his throat that he hopes is close to a _Yeah_.

He's almost slipped away, pre-dreams playing through his mind (something about diving, about new goggles, about Rin trying on a new swimsuit and asking him how it looks) when Rin moves away. Judging by the rustle of the blankets, he's sat up. Alertness hits Haruka like the morning alarm does – a great, dizzying lurch – but then he remembers where he is and relaxes back into the darkness behind his eyelids.

"I found something," Rin says. He giggles, deep and bouncy in his throat. Haruka doesn't know how he's gotten his energy back so quickly. "I found a sight you've probably never seen before."

"What?" Haruka says groggily. Not _What is it? _but _What the hell are you talking about?_

"Right here," Rin says, and pokes him right on the ass. Right cheek, low down, where it's fleshiest. "You have a freckle."

"What?" Haruka says again, because even though he heard, _What?_

"You have –" Rin says, and Haruka feels him shift before leaving a quick kiss right where he had been poking moments before "– a freckle. Right here."

"Don't…don't kiss my ass," Haruka says. Rin starts giggling again, and Haruka rolls his eyes and hides his smile in the pillow.

"I'll do more than kiss your ass," Rin threatens. "I _did_ more than kiss your ass."

Haruka sighs, works his arms beneath the pillow. His legs feel like worn out rubber bands. "You're making this hard to enjoy."

Rin laughs, a very breathless sound. "Don't be like that," he says. He tugs on the blanket, gives Haruka's side a nudge. "Lemme get this off, it's all gross."

Haruka puts minimal effort into rolling over so Rin can pull the blanket out from under him. Once Rin has extricated it, he uses it to wipe Haruka's stomach clean.

"Freckles come from the sun," Haruka says. He still hasn't bothered opening his eyes, which makes Rin's touch feel like it's coming from far away.

"Oh," Rin says. He lets the blanket drop to the floor, flops back down beside Haruka. "Whatever. Stay for a little bit." Then, arm slinking across Haruka's waist and face nuzzling back into Haruka's shoulder, he says, "I really do."

Haruka yawns. "Hm?"

Rin's lips are soft against Haruka's skin when he whispers, "Love you."

It hurts a lot, the messy flutter in Haruka's chest. He doesn't know if human hearts are meant to carry emotions so strong – would it hurt so much if they were? He should ask how Rin handles it, sometime.

He raises his left hand – his right arm is sandwiched against his side – aims for where he estimates Rin's face to be. It's awkward because he's reaching across his own body, but he finds Rin's hair, and then Rin moves his head and Haruka's pretty sure a finger goes partway up Rin's nose.

"Ow!" Rin jerks away. "Haru, what the fuck."

"Sorry," Haruka says, a smile taking to his lips. He feels around some more, finds Rin's jaw, lays his palm as comfortably against it as he can. Gives a little pat. "Me too."

A pause, and then Rin exhales noisily, manages to make it a sound full of embarrassment. He presses closer, hooks their ankles together.

Haruka thinks – once Rin has fallen asleep and started to drool and left him no way to escape – that they're really, really hopeless.


End file.
